


An Act of Love

by orphan_account



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: free form, plot what plot?, we're just here to experience artist!Quentin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 22:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15325284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Quentin's art is more than ink and paper.





	An Act of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't know what I was going to do for week 3: time (shh I know I haven't finished week 2 yet) and then Spooks starts talking about printmaking and poof! printmaker!Q

Quentin's art is more than ink and paper. It's more than lines and shapes and negative space drawing the eye. It's love and hate, benevolent, malignant, stringent, indifferent. It's forests and fairies, cities and skyscrapers, fantastic and foreboding. It's hints and riddles and screaming answers all at once. It's a lonely, cold and silent night under threadbare covers and a mother's scream of desperation as she lifts a car off her child.

It's different. And so is he.

He steps in front of his tools and he transforms. Gone is the stuttering, shy, stilted boy, replaced. Caffeine shakes smooth into sure, shifting muscle. A faint frown emerges. He's centered, fixated with single-minded purpose that loosens and tenses all at once.

He wears cool confidence like cape as he leans over his plate carefully cutting, carving, bits and pieces curling in front of his fingers, endlessly etching, pulling it from the material.

He puffs, scattering the scraps and picking it up, inspecting three hundred and sixty degrees.

Satisfied, he sets it down and reaches for the roller brush, painting the ink on with slightly sticky sounds, sweeping back and forth several times.

Black catches and spreads, chasing the shape of the whorls on his fingertips. He pauses to wipe them by his knees before washing them, the water shushed and shusshing in the sink.

The block is balanced between dirtless digits and placed on the canvas covering the table of the etching press. He picks up the paper and it's heavy, fibrous, unevenly colored.

Crouching, he lines it up and lets it fall into place, covering it with two more layers of cloth, softer felt and stronger canvas.

He goes to the wheel and grips it, cheekbones thrown into highlight by the shaft of sun sneaking in through a skylight. Fingers tighten and pull. The wheel reluctantly revolves, roller pulling the block towards it.

Halfway through the table thuds, shifts, rebalanced.

The wheel turns by itself now, eager, rushing, rasping against his palm. Time rushes past as its revolution slows to a stop.

His fingers brush down his apron, drying. Immaculate.

He drapes the felt and canvas over the roller and the dust mites drifting through the streak of sun seem drawn down. He grasps the two farthest corners and pulls, peeling it off.

It grips the block as he moves, greedily gasping as he brings it to life.


End file.
